Watch: ‘The Lion King’ roars to life in first teaser trailer

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The first trailer for the upcoming live-action remake of The Lion King is here, and boy did it send tingles up our spine. It’s got an almost shot-for-shot remake of the iconic opening sequence from the 1994 animated feature, with the soaring The Circle Of Life song accompanying the now legendary shot of Rafiki the wise mandrill holding the young baby Simba atop Pride Rock.

While it certainly got us almost blubbering with nostalgia, the trailer does raise an interesting question: will this ‘live-action remake’ just be a scene-by-scene replay of the animated film but with, well, better and more realistic animation? We certainly hope not.

Then again, Disney could just be teasing us and appealing to our nostalgic sides with a familiar and iconic sequence just to draw us in. Well, if that was what they set out to do with this trailer, they’ve certainly got our attention now.

Directed by Jon Favreau, with the voices of Donald Glover, Beyoncé, James Earl Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Seth Rogen, The Lion King is slated for a July 2019 release.